


Shock Treatment: Catch My Disease

by 221b_hound



Series: Guitar Man [55]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, John Watson is a terrible patient, John Watson's sweary mouth, Most of the time, Sherlock Holmes is a terrible nurse, Shock Blanket, Sickfic, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-11
Updated: 2013-07-11
Packaged: 2017-12-19 03:21:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/878822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson has a very bad cold. He is also a notoriously terrible patient. Today he's been left to die of manflu all on his own. Luckily, when he passes out on the stairs, Violet and For find him - and Violet tears strips off Sherlock for his negligence.</p><p>And while Sherlock does indeed have an appalling bedside manner, he's not a complete twat when his best friend is ill.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shock Treatment: Catch My Disease

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Ben Lee's 'Catch My Disease'.

Doctor John Watson is the first person to tell you that he is a godawful patient. He tolerates illness in others with the patience of a saint, and in himself not at all. He is foul tempered. He wants to be left alone. Or brought tea. Or softer pillows. Or harder ones. Or for that _fucking racket to shut the fuck up_!

Sherlock Holmes is a terrible patient. He’s also a terrible nurse. The term ‘a ministering angel thou’ is not in his personal lexicon – unless your name is Violet or Ford, in which case he discovers depths of concern and lavish attention nobody knew he had, least of all himself. But as devoted as Sherlock is to his best friend and blogger, his attitude to John Watson is more or less ‘physician, heal thyself’.

The best John can usually hope for is one cup of overbrewed tea either too early or too late in the morning, a jug of tepid water and a strip of paracetamol and then to be left thoroughly alone for the rest of the day. Most of the time, this suits John just fine.  He hates being mollycoddled. He hates Sherlock seeing him sick. Actually, when he’s sick, John hates pretty much everything and everyone. He’s consistent that way.

On this particular occasion, John was being especially consistent. Consistently aching, consistently coughing and sneezing, consistently cranky. Consistently ignored too.  Normally he was fine with that. Just fine.  Really. It mattered not that he was ill to the core, the incipient head cold having been fanned to feverishness when yesterday he had Sherlock had been forced to crouch neck-deep in the freezing water at the Trafalgar Square fountain. At least they’d retrieved the safety deposit box key, although the vital notebook had been soaked through. It therefore was also _absolutely fine_ that Sherlock had taken off with the notebook and a brilliant idea to recover the code written in its soon-to-be- _papier-mache_ pages, leaving John to get home on the Tube because no taxi would take him in his sodden and shivering state.  

It bothered John _not one whit_ that Mary refused to tend to him, because she was so prone to colds and respiratory ailments when in London – he didn't want her catching this, and then passing it on to Violet and Nirupa, and it was right and _proper_ that she stay away.

John didn't _want_ fussing. It was _good_ that Sherlock – who had suffered no ill effects from the winter wade, the _utter bastard_ – was out, finalising the loose ends of the case.  He didn’t _want_ Nirupa, Violet, Ford, the Lestrades or the Andersons to visit. John knew what a bastard he was when unwell.  He'd been mean enough to Mrs Hudson, who had come up with soup and sympathy.  He'd have sworn at her if his voice was anything but a rasp. Yes he knew how sick he was, _he was a doctor for fuck's sake!_ But the only noise to escape him had sounded like a leaky kettle, and she'd just petted his shoulder, pulled the blanket under his chin and dithered off to let him sleep.

So here he was in a tangle of gross, sneeze-and-cough begrimed, fever-sweaty bedsheets and blankets, needing a piss, and also a glass of water because the human body was contradictory that way.  All alone. And that was fine.  _Just fucking fine._

John struggled out of bed, lost his footing on a blanket that had slithered onto the floor, fell to his knees and had to hang onto the bed for leverage to get back onto his feet. Once righted, he stumbled, muttering obscenities, towards the bedroom door.

Gross.  He felt _so gross_.  His pyjamas clung damply to him, he stank of sweat and snot, and he ached all over from the incessant coughing. His legs wobbled ominously as he reached the fourth step down. Nevertheless, he made it to the bathroom, had his piss and his glass of water, washed his face and determined to at least change his pyjamas when he got back to his room.

His room.

Approximately 429 miles away and at least 15 flights of stairs upward. _Ah, fuck._

_Fuck winter, fuck colds and flu, fuck London and fuck the fact that my bedroom and its disgusting bed are so far away._

With a heroic effort, John made it back to the staircase and tried not to stare at how very very very far away was his bedroom door. There might be a few thousand very steep steps here, but he’d make it, one step at a time. He’d staggered down a mountaintop while supporting a wounded comrade the same way once, and at least there were no booby traps in the flat like there'd been on that road. Well, not if Sherlock had tidied up the last experiment like he’d promised.

_Okay. Stairs. Up. Here we go._

John was busy calling the entire world a _fuckturd monkey-arsed piss-bollocking shitfarm_ when another coughing fit seized him, and he coughed until he wheezed from lack of oxygen. He struggled to inhale, finally dragged in a lungful of oxygen, promptly went into another paroxysm of coughs and then sneezed so hard he thought he might have dislocated his neck.

The wobble in his knees transformed abruptly into the gentle yet complete failure of his joints, and he just folded down, smooth and easy, to a weak puddle on the stairs.

_Well. Isn't this just terrific?_

John sighed, and it came out a whimper that ended in a nasty cough, and for the first time in a long time as an adult, he positively ached for his mum to mop his brow and rub his feet and just take care him. He sat, his forehead bumped against the wall, and wondered if he might just sleep right here for the rest of the day.

“Oh hell, Dad!”

John blinked in an unfocused way at the sudden noise, and wondered how long he’d been dozing. He couldn’t quite make out the figure, but the voice was unmistakable.

“Hey, baby girl, hi.” Cough. “You shouldn’t be here, you’ll get sick.”

“Jesus, you’re frozen. Sherry! Sherry, I need a hand!”

Next thing John knew, two sets of strong hands were helping him up from the bottom step ( _How did I get here? Oh that’s right. Bathroom. Flu. Fuck London_ ) and into the living room, which was nearer (by about a thousand miles) than his own room. In a weary funk, John allowed the hands to manoeuvre him onto the sofa, settle him there, place a cushion under his head and a blanket over his legs and torso. A moment later, a bright orange shock blanket was tucked around his shoulders and neck. His shivering began to subside and he could hear his little girl’s voice as she abused someone over the phone.

“Sherlock, I found him on the stairs! Shivering in his pyjamas and bare feet! _Practically passed out_! He’s going to get _pneumonia_ at this rate! No, he’s _not_! He’s _not well_ , and **_he’s not invincible,_** and you left him _all on his own_! **I. Do. Not. Care. About. Your. Case**. Sherlock Holmes, you get home _this instant!_ No. Wait. Stop at the pharmacy. You need to get some more paracetamol, and some Vicks liniment. No. I’m not listening, Sherlock. La la la la, you hear that? _Not listening_.  Home. **_Now_**.”

John, eyes closed, smiled, because he never got tired of hearing their darling girl give Sherlock an earful. She didn’t do it often, but by god she was magnificent when she did.

“John?”

John cracked open a sleep-crusted eye and attempted to focus on the speaker. Ford’s blurry face resolved into an expression of worry.

“’M fine,” he mumbled, then coughed. He wiped his face on his pyjama sleeve then grimaced. “Eugh.”

“I’m getting you some clean pyjamas, okay?”

“Nonono,” he protested weakly, ‘S’okay.”

“You’re not okay, Dad, you’re a mess.” Violet again.

“Gross,” John said, clear as day, then coughed again.

“Yes, you are gross, and Sherlock is a bastard for leaving you alone.”

John tried to voice a defence of Sherlock, who was indeed a bastard, but he’d only been doing what John told him to do last night, which was ‘ _fuck off and leave me alone’_.

“School,” said John then.

“I’m done with my exams for the week,” Violet explained patiently, and he remembered that, oh yes, Violet was 18 now and finishing her A levels and getting brilliant marks so that she could go and study medicine. He was so proud of her. An attempt to say so, however, was lost in a nasty, wheezing cough. When he recovered he couldn’t remember what he was going to say, but he saw the figure hovering behind Violet.

“Ford?”

“We were going see if Mrs Hudson wanted to come to the movies with us,” Ford explained, “We just came up to see how you were.”

“Good thing too,” said Violet crossly, as though it was John’s own fault he had collapsed on the stairs. Maybe it was. John certainly felt kind of guilty about it now.

“You’ll get sick,” he said again.

“Not me,” declared Ford with a defiant grin, “Dad says I have the Holmes constitution. I’m immune to pretty much everything except gunshot wounds and stabbings.”

John may or may not have called Ford a ‘smug bastard’ at this point.

“I’m going to study medicine, like my old man,” said Violet, more fondly this time, “So I suppose I’d better get used to germs.”

John coughed some more, though less harshly this time, and was grateful when Violet helped him to sit up and tipped a glass of water against his mouth.

Sherlock returned in time to find Violet making tea in the kitchen and John feebly struggling with Ford, who was trying to make John change into clean pyjamas.

“Oh, let me,” said Sherlock in exasperation, and chased Ford off to take over the task. John flopped back on the sofa.

“Fuck,” he said, or tried to. It came out as ‘Fug’.

“You were supposed to stay in bed,” said Sherlock crossly.

“Needed a piss,” John confessed.

“You should have stayed in my room, as I suggested.”

“Yep,” John conceded. He shuddered violently, part chill now that the shock blanket was gone, part residual response to his subsiding fever.

Sherlock dragged John up to a sitting position and deftly removed the damp and gruesome pyjama top. John let the garment be unbuttoned and dragged off his shoulders. His chest goosebumped in the cool air and he began to shiver again. Sherlock grabbed the hand towel that Ford had left nearby and used it to scrub over John’s sweaty chest and back. John hissed and winced as the rough fabric passed over the scar of the exit wound. Sherlock pressed his fingers into the shoulder, massaging the aching muscles briefly until John’s hiss became a little groan of relief. Then he pulled the clean flannel pyjama top over John’s arms and did up the buttons.

“Come on. Up.” Sherlock hefted John upright, and John protested briefly, a mumble that became a slight shriek when Sherlock tugged down John’s pyjama pants.

“Fu… no!”

“Step.” Sherlock’s arms were wrapped around John’s waist, his face pressed against the doctor’s chest, his hands down at John’s ankles.

Grumbling, John stepped out of his pyjama pants and then, as Sherlock snapped the fresh ones out, into the new pair. Sherlock hoiked them swiftly up over his hips and pushed John back onto the sofa just as Violet returned with the tea caddy. Ford reappeared too, with an armful of rank sheets.

"I've remade the bed," he said.

John thought muzzily about trying to climb the stairs again and made a little meepy sound, then had another coughing fit.

"I'll carry you up," said Sherlock.

"F-f-fuck you will."

Violet pulled a blanket back across her father's lap and pressed a cup of tea into his hands, but he was shivering so hard again that he had trouble holding onto the cup. Violet frowned.

"My room, then," asserted Sherlock, adding "Shut up, John," before a protest could be lodged. Sherlock inserted himself beside John on the sofa, took the rattling cup out of John's hands and held it so that John could sip.

John gave him a death glare.

The glare managed to get on Violet’s last nerve. "Stop being such a stubborn old bastard! I know you hate it when anyone points it out, Dad, but you are over sixty now and you can't keep treating your body like you're still a kid.  You are _sick!_ You are going to get _pneumonia_! You are an _idiot!"_ It was the note of distress under her crossness that made John subside at last.

"Sorry, sweetheart."

"Just let us help _you_ for a change, Dad."

John mumbled something, nodded, and let Sherlock help him sip his lemon tea. Ford took the grubby bedding downstairs to the laundry and Violet went to make sure Sherlock's bed was fit for habitation.

In their brief absence, Sherlock helped John take more tablets and tugged the blanket up to cover John's chest. He retrieved the shock blanket and wrapped it around John's upper body. The warmth soothed away the last of the coughing.

“Sorry to drag you home," said John in a pitiful croak.

"Dont be an idiot. Violet wouldn't have told me to come back if you didn't need me."

"Did you get him?” The embezzler-turned-killer that had driven John to this pathetic state.

“Of course. Gregson’s doing the paperwork now.”

John nodded and let his body sag bonelessly against Sherlock's.  God it felt good to let go, just for a change, and not have to make any decisions.

"Right," said Violet, and John was surprised that the sound jerked him awake, "Bed."

John couldnt help but be amused at how meekly Sherlock took Violet's stern directions on helping John up and supportng him into the bedroom. He thought it was even funnier, the way Sherlock tipped him onto the mattress in an efficient but not especially delicate manner.

"Sherlock!"

"What?" Sherlock replied waspishly, "he's in bed. Covers up." Sherlock tugged the duvet up over John's shoulders impatiently, "Do you want me to kiss his fevered brow and sing him a lullaby as well?"

"Wouldn't hurt."

"Caarrn, gissa kiss," croaked John, then giggled.

"You know I only do that for cases," replied Sherlock primly, but his sudden grin made John laugh out loud, which promptly reduced him to a new coughing fit.

Violet rolled her eyes at them because her dads would never ever learn how to stop being teenagers, apparently.

Further berating and ridiculousness was forestalled, however, by the sound of Sherlock's violin. The exquisite strains of _La Sernissima_ morphed slowly into the melody for Violet's childhood lullaby and then into a sweet rendition of _Binary_. John was asleep by the end of it.

Violet and Sherlock tiptoed out to the living room just as Ford lifted the bow from the instrument.

"You used to play to me when I was sick," he said by way of explanation to Sherlock.

"Sherlock plays to all of us when we're sick," said Violet, smiling and hugging Sherlock's arm, by which Sherlock knew she had forgiven him for abandoning John to his flu. She looked up at him,still smiling, "You big softy."

He tried to give her a haughty glare, but she poked him in the ribs.

He sneezed. Mightily. Violet burst out laughing at his surprised and offended expression.

Sherlock's second attempt at a haughty glare was thwarted by Ford snatching up the abandoned shock blanket and throwing it over his shoulders.

"Medicinal happy blanket," Ford explained with a grin.

Sherlock pulled the blanket close with portentous dignity and lowered himself onto the sofa.

"Tea!" He said.

Violet, grinning, patted his cheek. "You two are the worst patients in the entire world. It’s excellent training, because I will never have patients more awful than the two of you."

Sherlock sneezed again. "And paracetamol."

Ford struck up another soothing melody as Violet fetched water, tablets and tea for her other dad.


End file.
